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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388501">What Money Can't Buy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506'>Project0506</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Soft Wars [123]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brothers, Brothers being assholes, Edeenanigans, Gen, Humor, brothers being brothers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:33:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,826</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The War Continues.  This time the gifts are for everyone to share.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Soft Wars [123]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fun/Humour/Crack in a Galaxy Far Far Away</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What Money Can't Buy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25744600">Friendship Is (Space) Magic</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506">Project0506</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Iiiiit’s a tiny gaaaaalaxyyyy.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>No</em>!” Fox snarls in a tone that Ponds is very sure hasonce scattered senators like rarabs before a hungry vulptex.</p><p> </p><p>It has no effect. Or rather, it has the exact opposite of the intended effect. The pair of half-twilek children sing even louder.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a fractured moon and two turquoise suns-”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>How much do you want</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>Ooh, Ponds whistles. Rookie mistake. Fox really should have spent more time with the Padawans: you don’t offer bribes for at least another twenty minutes.</p><p> </p><p>The song cuts out abruptly. The children trade adorably scheming looks. So cute! Ponds wants to hug them. He’ll check with the vod loitering just within sight of the landing field, they’re probably his. He’s got the look.</p><p> </p><p>“Hunnerd credits,” the boy lisps through gap teeth he’s incredibly aware he’s got, and is incredibly aware of how to make them work for him. He grins wide, just to make sure they notice. His giant floppy hat bobbles along over his lekku and falls halfway into his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>So cute.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Fine,” Fox snaps and doesn’t even try to haggle them down. Ponds is ashamed.</p><p> </p><p>“Such a bargain!” he exclaims in his most vacuous voice. Fox’s glare is icy death at the side of his head. “The last group charged <em>twice</em> that!”</p><p> </p><p>This is the next generation of Vode, after all. Ponds is morally obligated to provide them opportunities to excel. And as long they’re canny enough to grab chance as it presents -</p><p> </p><p>“We meant a hundred credits <em>each</em>,” the older girl corrects neatly without missing a beat.</p><p> </p><p>The future of the Vode is in excellent, adorable hands.</p><p> </p><p>“This,” Fox snaps and fishes out credit chips to half-throw at the pair. They clatter gratifyingly into their outstretched can. “Is fucking larceny.”</p><p> </p><p>“Language!”</p><p> </p><p>“Fucking Basic.”</p><p> </p><p>“What does fuck mean?” the girl continues sweetly. Her can remains outstretched. That’s still very likely her father lingering very visibly just out of hearing range.</p><p> </p><p>The boy leans close, dramatically cups his hands around his mouth and whispers loudly, “Hey, hey ba’vodu. Is fuck a no-no word?”</p><p> </p><p>Fox drops another hundred credits in the can. It stays upraised. Two hundred credits. The pair grin at the rattle.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you ba’vodu!” they chime and scamper merrily off.</p><p> </p><p>“Oi! You shi-”</p><p> </p><p>“Language!”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Shysters</em>,” Fox hisses and glares at Ponds again as if that was what he’d always intended to say. Ponds was uncorked at night but it wasn’t <em>last</em> night. Ponds raises a pointed eyebrow. He is soundly ignored.</p><p> </p><p>“Who the hell hired you?”</p><p> </p><p>The girl looks at Fox. Looks at her can, four hundred credits richer than when she’d ambushed them right off their star hopper. Looks back at them. Looks, very clearly, at where Fox has stashed his wallet.</p><p> </p><p>“Ba’vodu,” she says very seriously, and a little pityingly. “You can’t afford that.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“All I’m saying is <em>one of you</em> is a liar.”</p><p> </p><p>“One of <em>us</em>?” Fox squawks. He sorely looks like he wants to put his brother in a headlock. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have bothered to resist.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo lounges on the back two legs of his chair and glares mostly-playful threat at the others.</p><p> </p><p>“One of you,” Neyo repeats, each word carefully emphasized. “<em>One of you</em> is doing this.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>All four of us</em> have been hit you fucker, that means <em>everyone</em> is a suspect.”</p><p> </p><p>“Some of us are more suspect than others,” is Colt’s deceptively even contribution. Outside, the gaggle of vod’ikase that doggedly trailed him all the way to Neyo’s sweet little forest hideaway start up a rousingly off-key rendition of ‘Who Let The Akks Out’.</p><p> </p><p>The answer, apparently, is Colt, Colt, ColtColt.</p><p> </p><p>Oh how enterprising. Customize the message for the audience. This bunch will go far. Ponds hopes they’re Lightnings.</p><p> </p><p>He cracks the window just enough to let one or two teeny tiny handfuls of sweets tumble out. Vaughn, the absolute best accomplice, casually moves to block him from view, and has a convenient coughing fit to cover the minor scramble of tiny hands outside.</p><p> </p><p>Edee aren’t fooled of course, but Vaughn is just so <em>earnest</em> none of them seem willing to call him on it. Ponds adores him.</p><p> </p><p>“And <em>some of us</em> have live-in babysitters with access to the largest pool of Littles on planet.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” Ponds mutters. “Am <em>I</em> the babysitter?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like you’re the babysitter,” Vaughn hums.</p><p> </p><p>“Should I be insulted?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like you should be insulted.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m insulted,” he calls to the bunch. He doesn’t expect an answer and isn’t disappointed.</p><p> </p><p>“That is fair,” Gree agrees. He tsks and elbows Colt away from frankly mangling the meiloorun. Colt takes the insult to his dicing skills in far better grace than he does the caroling Little’s very loud track change to ‘If You Wanna Be My Brother’. “Though, and I suppose this is entirely irrelevant to the conversation, I’d like to mention the incredible coincidence that is the fact that <em>you</em> now have regular play dates with some of said Littles.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo doesn’t bother to deny it. “If we’re pointing fingers here <em>someone</em> has a <em>Jedi</em> who is directly involved in raising most of them.”</p><p> </p><p>“Leave Shaak out of this,” Colt says and there’s something about his tone that makes them all silently agree. Honestly, it would actually kill them to use their words.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh look!” Vaughn trills. “They’ve got a dance.”</p><p> </p><p>Ponds looks. They do have a dance. It’s precious. They clearly rehearsed. “And I don’t have my holorecorder,” he mourns.</p><p> </p><p>“We have a holocam,” Vaughn assures him.</p><p> </p><p>Huh. Ponds knew Neyo trended towards slightly paranoid but he hadn’t thought there’d be much trouble at all, way out here.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh no, nothing like that. Neyo’s tooka likes to watch the birds.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not my tooka!”</p><p> </p><p>“And it got too cold for her to keep going outside so he set her up with a feed. It starts up whenever there’s movement.”</p><p> </p><p>That is the sweetest thing and Fox’s vod’ika is the sweetest thing. He even lets Ponds pat his head a couple of times, though he does glare around like he’s daring anyone to make a thing of it. Ponds contents himself with just two pats. More than that and he might risk getting his hand taken off at the wrist.</p><p> </p><p>“Statistically,” Fox snaps and puts his aggression into halving a spinefruit with a single cleaver blow. Vaughn yelps and dives for the launched half before it hits their very nice hardwood floor. “Considering fucking opportunity and the <em>tendency to karking annoy</em>, I think it’s safe to say you’re the most likely culprit <em>Ney’ika</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Alpha 6 wanders in, drinking something violently orange through a bendy straw from a martini glass. Ponds always did admire his confidence. “Gree,” he drawls. “Visitors.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah one, ah two, ah one two three,” calls the vod’ika right behind 6’s leg.</p><p> </p><p>“I WROTE A SONG,” holler the three behind <em>him</em>. “I WROTE A SONG FOR YOUUUU. And it was called YELLOW.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Green</em>,” hisses In Front. “We said <em>Green</em> because it’s <em>Gree</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Green is a single syllable and doesn’t fit the tempo,” hisses back one of the rest.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m Gree Da Ba Dee Da Ba Dai Da Ba Dee Da,” starts another entirely heedless of the squabble now breaking in Neyo and Vaughn’s kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh Force,” Gree mutters. Suddenly Colt is back on melon duty while Gree hustles the hustlers back outside to their respective minders, all inevitably richer than when they knocked.</p><p> </p><p>This, regardless of how it started, is an exceptionally profitable racket for the Littles. Ponds will have to investigate their rates around Life Day.</p><p> </p><p>“I detest you all,” 6 pronounces and accepts a refill.</p><p> </p><p>“Fox started it,” Neyo calls at his retreating back.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t give a shit which one of you it was,” comes the response. “Something’s burning.”</p><p> </p><p>“Kark,” Ponds yelps. “The roast!”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“And <em>I’m</em> saying that none of <em>us</em> knew what time you were flying in. So if you claim a gaggle supposedly met you at the spaceport well, it is a little hard to believe.” Gree trades the bowl of mashed tubers for the fruit plate. Ponds trades the fruit for the gravy bowl and sends that along after the tubers. He sends the roast counter direction.</p><p> </p><p>“You think I’d fucking make up being shaken down by knee-high gangsters?”</p><p> </p><p>“How much did you say they supposedly got out of you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t you fucking mind. Just know that they’re thieves and they’re <em>well-informed</em> thieves.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who knew to meet you when no-one knew you when you were coming.” Colt nods his thanks for the meats, serves himself and a Neyo distracted trying to keep a curious tooka from his plate.</p><p> </p><p>“Except maybe a mind reader. If only there was an entire enclave of people like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t want to fly there,” Colt reminds. “You won’t like where you land.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” hums Gree in that contemplative sort of voice Ponds has come to associate with An Edee About To Be An Asshole. “<em>One</em> other person did know your itinerary. Technically.”</p><p> </p><p>The entire table very carefully doesn’t look at Ponds. Cute. They think he’d come unarmed.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t want to drag me into this,” he titters. He doesn’t have Colt’s stoic-warning face going for him but he’s hardly out of his depth. “Because you never get just <em>one</em> Shebs, do you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t drag Ponds into this,” Fox grumbles.</p><p> </p><p>“It isn’t worth the collateral damage,” Colt agrees. Rude. True, but rude. Probably has something to do with Rex and Bly at one point insisting that it was absolutely a Jedi Culture Thing that you Had To Leave Room For The Force for four tendays after the start of a relationship. Unless Ponds is mistaken, Cody might have gotten <em>his</em> Jedi to play along.</p><p> </p><p>In retrospect, maybe Colt has a point.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait. We’ve been saying it’s ‘one of us’, and only counting four. Hey 6,” starts Neyo.</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck off.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo nods seriously. The rest of Edee follow suit. “I can respect that.”</p><p> </p><p>They’re all so very odd.</p><p> </p><p>Outside the windows the Colt group of Littles has traded shifts with the Neyo group and there isn’t universal agreement on how quickly one should sing ‘Heya’.</p><p> </p><p>“At least it’s not ‘What Does The Fox Say’,” Vaughn whispers. He delivers another tray of sandwiches and juice bottles to the window and Ponds doesn’t think he’s mistaken that there’s now a large number of pudding cups cooling in the chiller.</p><p> </p><p>“That wouldn’t end well,” Ponds agrees. Hilariously, but likely not well. The Fox says quite a lot of things not fit for Little audio receptors. He grabs the pudding.</p><p> </p><p>When it’s just them, just Ponds and Vaughn after the bottomless little terrors have accepted their edible bribes for what it was and trekked off home, Vaughn shoots Ponds the tiniest little look and the tiniest little smile.</p><p> </p><p>He saw it too. A hand just a little over-played, communal victimhood just a little too visibly established.</p><p> </p><p>“Gree,” he mouths because of course he’s viciously clever.</p><p> </p><p>“Gree,” Ponds mouths back. They snicker. Edee squabbles.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No I'm not sorry.  If I have to have them stuck in my head, I'm gonna inflict them on everyone.</p><p>And of course, there's also the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ">Honorable Mention</a></p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28187238">See Me In Shadow</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaylaYuy/pseuds/RogueLadyVader">RogueLadyVader (LaylaYuy)</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
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